I find it extremely disturbing that I finished reading this book on the 25th anniversary of Bhopal. The messages and warnings found in this book sync up perfectly with that catastrophe: chemicals that leaked into the atmosphere making the environment around it poisonous, increased sterility, mass death...all that horrible stuff you read about but it never happens to you. This books shows you what might happen if it happened to us all.

This book follows Offred, a Handmaid. She must deal with being nothing more than a "womb on two legs". It sounds horrible, and it is. Whereas we live in a very liberal time now, this book is very conservative. The Bible is the focal point of their society, but it has been twisted by the rulers, allowing them to manipulate the very creed they claim to obey. Those who don't follow this new "religion" are killed. The human population is dying off and those who stand in the way of renewing the population must be eliminated.

There were a lot of horrible things that happened in this book. Some parts actually gave me the symptoms one experiences when one is afraid (high heart rate, fast breathing, etc). But I think the scariest part is the end.

Spoiler Ahead

It worked. Using the Handmaids renewed the population, taking the human race out of dark age featured in The Handmaid's Tale and bringing it back to a society like present times. The ending makes you question your views about the entire novel. Was it okay, then? After all, it was a severe situation. In this particular case, do the ends justify the means?

End Spoiler

There was also "freedom from". As one person points out in the novel, they used to have the freedom to work and be independent. Now they have the freedom from work, sexual assault, poverty. "In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it." It's frightening how in some passages like this, I almost found myself agreeing with what was taking place. It makes me wonder how easy it would be for something like this to happen. Could we really allow ourselves to be brainwashed like this?

I would recommend this book to anyone. It's one of those books that just makes you sit back and think hard about your entire belief system. And on top of that, it's not a horrible story :) ( )

Strange but interesting, kinda depressing. Ends very abruptly. It was just ok. ( )

A strange book and if I wasnt reading it for a bookclub discussion I might have given up. The first half of the book was very hard going. Flat prose and little dialogue. Whilst I appreciate this is in part due to the nature of the story it doesn’t make it any easy for the reader. As more characters are introduced it becomes an easier read but never overly enjoyable. The story paints a bleak picture of the future, of women used solely as receptacles for new life in Atwood’s clinical and isolated world. The novel conjures up interesting ideas but the story in itself comes across as dry and depressing. Considering the book is 20 years old, there isnt any jarring displacement in terms of technology and there are some topical comments on environmental issues which is impressive given its age. Saying all that, it’s just not a Utopia I envisonaged. ( )

Although this book was a bit dark, I found it good reading as Margaret Atwood is one of my faves. Scary, almost unbelievable, haunting. ( )

For some reason I avoided this book for quite a while--I wasn't sure what it was about, though I thought maybe it had something to do with Geishas, actually. Picking it up yesterday and finally giving it a chance was well worth my time, though. I loved this book.

Basically, it's set in a dystopian America where modesty laws are extraordinarily strict (Christianity-based in this book, though I was reminded of the Sharia law upheld in some Muslim sects), and women are divided into three classes--Marthas (housekeepers), Wives, and Handmaidens (surrogate mothers). The story is told from a Handmaiden's perspective, as the title would suggest.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys books like 1984, A Brave New World, The Giver, Winterflight, etc. but someone familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate how those in power misquote and subtly twist the meanings of the verses used in the book would probably get the most out of it; I know this was one of the creepiest elements of the story for me. ( )